“So, eventually, someone who hasn’t seen the stash will believe they did see it, because they’ve heard about other people seeing the stash often enough?” Seiji’s nose wrinkled judgmentally. “Then they will report it? That makes no sense.”
Eugene shrugged. “Don’t know what to tell you, bro. That’s how gossip works.”
Seiji seemed to accept his words. “I will leave this matter in your expert hands, Eugene. That’s what teamwork is about. I look forward to seeing results.”
Horror visibly descended on Eugene, just as the bell rang for the start of classes and everybody rose from the breakfast table. Only Aiden noticed that Eugene was in the grip of a nameless dread. Eugene looked up to find Aiden’s amused gaze upon him.
Eugene mouthed Help me, bro. Aiden gave him a little shrug, a little smile, and a little wave. Then he waltzed off and left Eugene to his fate.
Classes were tedious, as usual, but Aiden was cheered by the fact that Harvard stopped in after each one to check up on him. When in class, Aiden amused himself by contributing to the gossip about gold bars and stolen watches. He noticed there were two students in his and Harvard’s grade who were starting to wilt under intense collective looks of suspicion. He’d always thought those boys were worms and felt this pair deserved whatever the inexorable wrath of Seiji Katayama—aided by master of whispers Eugene Labao—had in store for them, then decided to forget all about it. He headed to his and Harvard’s room for their last night.
There wouldn’t ever be another night. He wanted to make the most of this one. If Harvard wanted to, as well. After the kiss on fair night, Aiden thought Harvard might be open to taking things a little further.
He wouldn’t go too far. Just as much as Harvard wanted and no more.
The sun was low in the sky, spilling across the floor and half across their beds, like a gold sheet turned down and ready for someone to climb in. Aiden stretched out across the beds and waited for the door to open.
“Hey,” said Harvard when it did. “Were you okay being in class today? Are you feeling sick again?”
“I’m glad you’re back,” Aiden told him. “I’m feeling all better.”
Harvard’s brow was furrowed in concern as he put down his bag, shrugging off his jacket and loosening his tie. “That’s why you’re lying down at five thirty in the afternoon?”
“Mmm.”
It was a noncommittal, but calculated sound. Aiden made another, a long, drawn-out sigh as he lifted his arms over his head. His uniform shirt was already mostly unbuttoned, rumpled enough so that it might be accidental. He saw that Harvard noticed.
Then Harvard looked out the window. “The rules said this stops at the door of our room.”
“I was thinking,” said Aiden. “It’s time to break the rules.”
Harvard glanced back at him, almost involuntarily, then out the window again. “Why?”
He sounded as if he wanted to be convinced.
“It’s time for a lesson progression,” Aiden informed him. “At first, dating is going out places together. But there comes the time when you stay in… together. What do you do on the first night he asks you to watch a movie at his place?”
Harvard swallowed, looking almost helpless.
“Uh, what do I do?”
“Say yes, for a start,” murmured Aiden. “Come over here.”
“We’ve watched movies together, like, a million times,” Harvard pointed out. “Is it that different?”
“Come over here and find out.” Aiden hesitated. “If you want to.”
He watched Harvard carefully for any sign of reluctance, telling himself that if he saw even a trace, he’d stop. He’d stop right now; he’d tell Harvard it was done.
Harvard nodded, bit his lip, and smiled. Shy, but eager.
Aiden had seen this expression on boys’ faces a thousand times, but never on Harvard, so it was like seeing that look for the first time. Like seeing a sunrise for the first time after learning the word sun, wonder given bright new meaning.
Harvard put on one of their favorite movies and came over to the bed. Aiden felt the give of the mattress under his body as Harvard crawled over to be next to him.
Initially, it wasn’t that different. They had watched movies together a million times before. Aiden had always possessed a buzzing, constant awareness of Harvard, where Harvard was in relation to him, where they were touching and where they weren’t.
The awareness was magnified; now Aiden could hope it was—to some degree—mutual.
They laughed and joked through the opening credits and romance in the sunset, then watched with more focus as a Spaniard and a masked man in black had a duel on the edge of a cliff.
Then the Spaniard revealed that he wasn’t actually left-handed.
He switched his sword to his right hand and swung into the fight with renewed vigor. The duel at the cliff’s edge recommenced, steel swinging and slicing bright in the sun’s rays.
Harvard pointed. “You know, right there is when the stuntman catches the sword out of frame.”
“I know.”
Aiden did know. Harvard always told him this fact at this precise moment. Aiden had watched this movie without Harvard once—on a date. Seeing the sword fly without the familiar murmur had upset Aiden enough to turn off the movie.
Tonight, Harvard was here with him. They were both lying on their stomachs with their legs kicked up and their hands cupped in their chins, as though they were six years old.
They weren’t.
Aiden tangled their legs together slightly, deliberately. It felt far more dangerous than crossing swords. Aiden couldn’t imagine a match with so much at stake.
“During a date when you stay in,” Aiden said, teaching, “you should try to see if the other person is receptive to you getting closer.”
Harvard gave Aiden a look out of the corner of his eye, and let their legs stay tangled, resting with light pressure against one another. Love was a delusion, nothing but an electrical impulse in the brain, but there were many impulses running electric under Aiden’s skin right now.
The man in black smiled beneath his mask and switched his sword to his right hand. The clash of swords rang over the sound of the sea.
Aiden sneaked another look at Harvard, the shine of his dark eyes and white teeth in the silvery glow from the screen. Harvard caught him looking, but he returned Aiden’s look with a look of his own, warmly affectionate and never suspicious at all. Harvard never suspected a thing.
Because Aiden was his best friend, and Harvard trusted him. And Harvard could trust him. Aiden would never do anything to hurt Harvard, not anything at all.
Aiden moved in still closer, his arm set against Harvard’s, solid muscle under the thin material of his shirtsleeve. He could put his arm around Harvard’s shoulders or slip an arm around his waist or lean in. He was allowed, just for tonight.
“Why are you smiling?” Harvard asked, teasing.
“Because I know something you don’t know,” Aiden teased back.
Harvard raised an eyebrow. “And what is that?”
“You’re really cute,” murmured Aiden, and leaned in.
His lean was arrested when Harvard laughed. “Ha! That’s such a line. These things really work on your guys?”
Overcome by the magnitude of this insult, Aiden snapped, “Invariably!”
Harvard rolled his eyes. “I hate to tell you this, buddy, but I think they’re letting you get away with substandard lines because you’re cute.”
Aiden paused, torn between being deeply offended and ridiculously flattered.
Harvard bit his lip, seeming to think this over.
“I guess if you guys both know you’re just playing around, what you say doesn’t really count,” he offered. “That’s why people call them lines, like the things you say in a play. I know this isn’t real, but…”
Aiden tried to keep his voice soft, to be understanding. “But it’s practice for being real.” His mouth twiste
d on the name, but he forced it out. “For Neil.”
Harvard winced. Aiden supposed it might feel a little weird, to hear the name of the boy he actually liked, while tangled up with another. For Harvard, who was so good, it might feel close to cheating.
Aiden didn’t want to say the name or hear it or think it. Harvard seemed to be struggling with a thought, and Aiden waited to hear Harvard tell him what he wanted. That was all Aiden wished to know or to do. What Harvard wanted.
“Have you ever… liked anyone for real?” Harvard asked in a voice that started low and sank with every word, until it almost disappeared on the word real.
Aiden didn’t trust himself to speak, so he only nodded.
“What did you say to him?”
“I never said anything to him,” Aiden answered slowly. “But there were things I wanted to say.”
“Like what?” murmured Harvard, then shut his eyes, lashes black silk fans against his cheekbones. “You don’t have to say. Not if it hurts. You don’t have to.”
It hurt, but this would be Aiden’s only chance to say all the things he wanted to say. He wouldn’t get another.
Life always hurt, but Harvard was the only one who could ever make it feel better.
Aiden leaned in toward Harvard as close as he could get, so close that every breath was like a storm in the tiny space between them. The blood beneath his skin seemed like thunder, every faint electric impulse turned to dangerous lightning, and every whisper to a desperate shout.
Aiden whispered: “Listen.”
25: HARVARD
Aiden was very close, and it was very distracting. His shirt was off in all the ways it could be off while still being nominally on. At least if the shirt had been entirely off, it could’ve been normal, part of the everyday routine of getting dressed and undressed in the dormitory. Instead of this deliberate gesture toward nakedness. Half of Aiden’s hair had come loose and was floating in the narrow space between them, the silky ends brushing Harvard’s cheek. Harvard was having difficulty breathing.
But Aiden had asked him to listen, and Harvard always tried to do whatever Aiden asked of him. Harvard swallowed, and made an encouraging noise.
“I don’t believe in love that never ends,” said Aiden, his whisper clear and distinct. “I don’t believe in being true until death or finding the other half of your soul.”
Harvard raised an eyebrow but didn’t comment. Privately, he considered that it might be good that Aiden hadn’t delivered this speech to this guy he apparently liked so much—whom Aiden had never even mentioned to his best friend before now. This speech was not romantic.
Once again, Harvard had to wonder if what he’d been assuming was Aiden’s romantic prowess had actually been many guys letting Aiden get away with murder because he was awfully cute.
But Aiden sounded upset, and that spoke to an instinct in Harvard natural as breath. He put his arm around Aiden, and drew his best friend close against him, warm skin and soft hair and barely there shirt and all, and tried to make a sound that was more soothing than fraught.
“I don’t believe in songs or promises. I don’t believe in hearts or flowers or lightning strikes.” Aiden snatched a breath as though it was his last before drowning. “I never believed in anything but you.”
“Aiden,” said Harvard, bewildered and on the verge of distress. He felt as if there was something he wasn’t getting here.
Even more urgently, he felt he should cut off Aiden. It had been a mistake to ask. This wasn’t meant for Harvard, but for someone else, and worse than anything, there was pain in Aiden’s voice. That must be stopped now.
Aiden kissed him, startling and fierce, and said against Harvard’s mouth, “Shut up. Let me… let me.”
Harvard nodded involuntarily, because of the way Aiden had asked, unable to deny Aiden even things Harvard should refuse to give. Aiden’s warm breath was running down into the small shivery space between the fabric of Harvard’s shirt and his skin. It was panic-inducing, feeling all the impulses of Harvard’s body and his heart like wires that were not only crossed but also impossibly tangled. Disentangling them felt potentially deadly. Everything inside him was in electric knots.
“I’ll let you do anything you want,” Harvard told him, “but don’t—don’t—”
Hurt yourself. Seeing Aiden sad was unbearable. Harvard didn’t know what to do to fix it.
The kiss had turned the air between them into dry grass or kindling, a space where there might be smoke or fire at any moment. Aiden was focused on toying with the collar of Harvard’s shirt, Aiden’s brows drawn together in concentration. Aiden’s fingertips glancing against his skin burned.
“You’re so warm,” Aiden said. “Nothing else ever was. I only knew goodness existed because you were the best. You’re the best of everything to me.”
Harvard made a wretched sound, leaning in to press his forehead against Aiden’s.
He’d known Aiden was lonely, that the long line of guys wasn’t just to have fun but tied up in the cold, huge manor where Aiden had spent his whole childhood, in Aiden’s father with his flat shark eyes and sharp shark smile, and in the long line of stepmothers who Aiden’s father chose because he had no use for people with hearts. Harvard had always known Aiden’s father wanted to crush the heart out of Aiden. He’d always worried Aiden’s father would succeed.
Aiden said, his voice distant even though he was so close, “I always knew all of you was too much to ask for.”
Harvard didn’t know what to say, so he obeyed a wild foolish impulse, turned his face the crucial fraction toward Aiden’s, and kissed him. Aiden sank into the kiss with a faint sweet noise, as though he’d finally heard Harvard’s wordless cry of distress and was answering it with belated reassurance: No, I’ll be all right. We’re not lost.
The idea of anyone not loving Aiden back was unimaginable, but it had clearly happened. Harvard couldn’t think of how to say it, so he tried to make the kiss say it. I’m so sorry you were in pain. I never guessed. I’m sorry I can’t fix this, but I would if I could. He didn’t love you, but I do.
Maybe a kiss was the wrong impulse. Harvard drew back, only to see Aiden’s face darken.
“There,” Aiden hurled at him, defiant. “That’s what I would say to you if this was real, and I really liked you. Happy now?”
As if Harvard could be happy when Aiden sounded miserable and Harvard didn’t even know why. But Harvard didn’t want to seem ungrateful when Aiden was doing him a favor. When the favor had clearly cost Aiden something.
“I… I don’t… Thanks,” Harvard said. “Come here.”
Aiden was only an inch away, but it felt like an impossible distance. Harvard missed him, even though that made no sense. Aiden shouldn’t be so far away. Such terrible things shouldn’t be allowed.
Aiden came willingly. More than willingly. More than eagerly. His body flowed in toward, then all along Harvard’s. Like water to the shoreline, his arms twining right around Harvard’s neck. Aiden nuzzled his face in against Harvard’s cheek. Harvard felt Aiden’s eyelashes fluttering shut against his skin. He ran a hand up along the curve of Aiden’s back, and felt him shudder.
“Can I please stop talking now?” Aiden said, his voice raw with pleading, as though someone had been making him talk. As if Harvard could, or would, make him do anything.
He didn’t think he’d ever heard Aiden say please before.
Aiden said it again between kisses, begging naturally and easily. “Please,” as his mouth slid against Harvard’s. “Please, please” again, as his mouth trailed up to Harvard’s ear. “Please.”
“Yes,” Harvard murmured. “Aiden, yes.”
Yes, yes, yes, anything you want, only stop, and never stop.
Given explicit permission, Aiden pounced. They were rolling together in a wild tangle of bedsheets and limbs, kissing even more wildly, Aiden pulling Harvard’s shirt open and sliding his hands inside was a welcome shock. Harvard was arched over Aiden, his body
almost touching Aiden’s all over. One of Harvard’s arms was held over their heads to support some of his weight, his fingers knotted in the loose tumble of Aiden’s hair. Aiden surged up and kissed him again.
Nothing made any sense, except the one truth that always did: Aiden shouldn’t be unhappy. He often was, and it made Harvard wild with misery, too, made him wish there was something he could do to make Aiden happy again. Aiden had seemed ferociously unhappy only moments ago, but now he was smiling, eyes open again and bright.
When Aiden threw back his head, Harvard kissed the bared line of his throat, then his jaw. Aiden slid his palm down Harvard’s chest to rest against Harvard’s bare hip, and then hesitated.
Somewhere in the background, the movie was still playing. The world probably still existed. It didn’t seem to matter much, past the white square that was their beds, pushed so close together they might as well be one.
“If this was a real date,” Harvard whispered, “what would happen next?”
He saw, very clearly, that Aiden understood what he was asking. He saw Aiden’s teeth slide carefully over the swollen curve of his own lower lip. Without meaning to, Harvard bent down and kissed his mouth again.
“We should stop,” murmured Aiden, who usually sounded immensely sure of himself. Right now he didn’t sound certain at all.
“I don’t want to stop,” said Harvard.
“You’re sure?”
“I’m sure,” Harvard answered.
He shouldn’t have been sure, but he was.
“But—Neil,” said Aiden, very low.
“Who the hell is Neil?” Harvard asked, kissing Aiden again.
Aiden was the whole world stretched out beneath him. Aiden’s hair spread out on the sheets, Aiden moaning in his ear. The magnitude of his certainty tipped Harvard over the edge into terrifying and unwelcome knowledge.
Terrible realization dawned, remorseless illumination shed on a whole landscape. Harvard found himself looking at his entire life in a new light.
Aiden on their first day of school, on their first day of fencing class, on their last day in the hospital, on their first day at Kings Row. Inextricably part of every important moment in Harvard’s life. The bright and shining center of Harvard’s life, ever since he’d turned around and seen Aiden and thought, That boy looks sad, and wanted nothing but to give Aiden everything.
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